Benedict Cumberbatch’s Words of Photographic Wisdom

From the set of the BBC’s Sherlock, international star Benedict Cumberbatch flashed a message to the paparazzi that was captured by Cardiff-based photographer Matthew Horwood.

Photo by Matthew Horwood

It’s an interesting symbiotic strategy, and one that stars should employ more often. The paparazzi want something interesting to show their audience and the actor has the perfect platform from which to subtly (or not so subtly) influence the conversation. It beats (no pun intended) the hell out of Kanye West assaulting a photographer for talking to him.

More significant, though, is Cumberbatch’s message. Egypt is a hotbed of turmoil right now, and as has historically been the case, the US media hasn’t maintained a large focus on the region as evidenced by this typical Dec 5, 2011 cover of TIME.

And the imagery coming from Egypt is riveting, like Aly Hazzaa’s photo of a truck falling off the 6th of October bridge in Cairo and the photographer’s backstory. Aly previously worked as a mechatronic engineer, but decided to become a photojournalist three years ago.

Photo by Aly Hazzaa

An equally as riveting is Animal’s Aymann Ismail photo of the Muslim Brotherhood defacing a mosque before they attacked him. We tend to take photos like these for granted, but this is an unambiguous case of a photographer putting himself in harm’s way to show the world a slice of this conflict. And the fact that Ismail puts his attackers on the phone with his mom to retrieve his stolen cards serves as proof of the ridiculousness of the chaos.